1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicle hood raising system and more particularly to a technique for reducing an impact imparted to a pedestrian when a vehicle collides with the pedestrian by raising a hood of the vehicle to secure an amount of space enabling the reduction in impact within an engine compartment.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, taking it into consideration to secure the safety of pedestrians, vehicles have been developed which include an impact absorbing mechanism on a hood at a front part thereof in anticipation of a collision with a pedestrian.
For example, there exists a technique in which a pedestrian is prevented from striking an underhood hard component such as an engine when the pedestrian collides against a hood of a vehicle by lifting a rear side of the hood to secure a sufficient amount of space within an engine compartment when the vehicle collides with the pedestrian.
Specifically, a configuration is disclosed in which a link member is provided at either of end portions of a rear edge of the hood in such a manner as to be supported on a body's side at one end and on a hood's side at the other end thereof, and the link member is normally locked on the body's side by a lock member, whereas when the vehicle collides with a pedestrian, an actuator is activated to release the lock of the link member by the lock member and then to act to lift the hood.
Incidentally, when the hood is lifted by the actuators, the hood tends to continue to rotate further upwards than necessary by inertial force even after the raising thereof has been completed.
Then, to cope with this, a stopper mechanism is provided for restricting the rotation of the hood to a predetermined amount. As this stopper mechanism, there is known a stopper mechanism in which a racket is mounted on the body's side, and a cable is stored within the bracket with a leading end portion of the cable pulled upwards from the bracket to be fixedly connected to the hood.
When the vehicle collides with a pedestrian, while the actuators are activated to lift the hood, as this occurs, the cable of the stopper mechanism is pulled out of the bracket, and when the cable is pulled so out a predetermined amount, the cable is stretched tense, whereby the rotation of the hood is made to be stopped, as disclosed in United State Patent Application Publication No. US 2005/0257980 A1.
In the technique disclosed in United State Patent Application Publication No. US 2005/0257980 A1, however, since the stopper mechanism is provided outside the hood raising mechanisms, the space exclusive to the stopper mechanism becomes necessary, leading to a problem that the hood raising configuration cannot be made compact.
In addition, since part of the cable sticks out from an upper end portion of the bracket, the portion that so sticks out is subjected to vibration, whereby the cable vibrates at the portion in question to cause noise.
Additionally, since the hood is stopped abruptly by the cable of the stopper mechanism being stretched tense, strong impact is exerted on the hood, there being a fear that the hood is damaged.